Trial of the new gas weapon

25 January 1915

By January 1915 the trials of the new weapon - the gas cloud - had gone far
enough for the Chief of the German General Staff, General von Falkenhayn.
He decided it was time to try it out on the battlefield.(1)

From the reports of the German meteorologists German Supreme Command believed
that southerly winds (that is, the wind blowing from the south to the
north) were predominant in Flanders in the spring. With this
in mind, it was necessary to make the attack from a part of the German front
line which faced north, so that the southerly wind would carry the gas forward
to the Allied trenches.

The Ypres Front

The sector selected by General Falkenhayn for the first trial
of an infantry attack preceded by gas was that of XV. Army Corps in the
front line of the German 4th Army in Belgian Flanders.
This Corps was holding the line south of and including the village of Gheluvelt.
It was one of the few stretches of the German front line on the Western Front
which did face to the north/north-west. The XV. Corps sector
stretched from the Ypres-Comines canal on the left flank to
north of the Ypres-Menin Road.

The ridge of high ground, along which the German line had advantageously been
established in the south-eastern part of the Ypres Salient,
is shown on the map as the 50 metre above sea level contour line. It runs from the border with France in the south-west to the village of Passchendael north-east.

A Trial Attack

On 25th January 1915 the commander of XV. Corps, General von
Deimling, attended a meeting at the German Supreme Command Headquarters
for the Western Front in Mézieres, France. There he
met with General von Falkenhayn and the Chief of Staff of the German
4th Army, Major-General Ilse.

Learning that his sector had been selected to test the new weapon, General
Deimling requested large quantities of ammunition from German Supreme
Command. His hope was that if the gas was successful in knocking out the enemy
troops he might be able to exploit a successful breakthrough of the Allied line
here. However, General Falkenhayn refused the request on the
pretext that this was only a trial to test the use of gas. Should there be a
successful breakthrough, however, he said that the necessary ammunition would
be sent to the XV. Corps as required.

The trial gas attack at XV. Corps was to be organised in co-operation
with the neighbouring XXVII. Reserve Corps on its right. The
XXVII. Reserve Corps was to mount a limited, localised attack
westwards towards the line Zonnebeke-Gravenstafel. The objective
was to improve its own position on the ridge of high ground overlooking the
Allied positions in the Ypres Salient.

Technical Direction

General Deimling, Commander of the XV. Corps in the Ypres Salient.

The technical direction of the trial gas operation came from Professor Dr.
Haber of the ‘Geheimnis Regierungsrat’ (Secret Privy Council). He had been
put in charge of the chemical department of the Prussian War Ministry. Oberst
[Colonel] Peterson was put in charge of training
up special pioneer units to form Pioneer-Regiment 35 to install
and operate the gas cylinders. Each pioneer unit included a meteorologist in
the technical team of engineers and scientists. The Pioneer-Regiment became
known as Gasregiment Peterson. It consisted of two battalions,
each having 3 companies. The regiment also had attached troops in a Park-Kompagnie
(a depot/stores company), a Feldwetterstation (a meterological
station) and a Fernsprechabteilung (telephone detachment).

The batteries of cylinders were named Flaschen-Batterien,
meaning batteries of bottles or cylinders. From this the word 'Flaschen' was
shortened to 'F', giving the codename F-Batteries. This was to disguise
the gas cylinders from Allied military intelligence. Rather disturbingly, in
view of the events which were to happen 25 years later in the gas chambers of
the German Third Reich, the codename “Disinfection” was given
to the chlorine gas cloud.

For the trial 6,000 large chlorine cylinders were requisitioned from current
commercial use (this was half the stock of commercial cylinders available in
Germany). They were sent to the German 4th Army. A further
24,000 small bottles were placed on order. Dr. Haber calculated
that for every metre of front line designated for the release of the gas one
large or two small cylinders would need to be installed in the front trench.(2)

By the end of February 1915 the installation of the first issue of gas cylinders
was completed in a small sector of the XV. Corps front line,
near the village of Gheluvelt. During the next two weeks work
was continued to install gas cylinders along the whole frontage of the Corps.(3)